I've never heard the "Diana came fourth" before. If Princess Margaret, as a Princess of the Blood and younger child of a sovereign, outranked Diana then Princess Anne should have done as well.

Every time I heard Diana being mentioned in terms of precedence at Court, it was always as the third lady in the land behind the Queen and the Queen Mother.

Princess Margaret was the senior princess of the blood closest to the Sovereign, followed by The Queen's daughter. Court precedence is entirely at the will of The Sovereign and means little today, except as a tradition.

In George V's court, someone like Peter Phillips would have to bow to every Royal Highness present and walk last into the dining room. Obviously, they don't worry about these issues of title and rank today.

We were talking about the order of precedence and in this, at that time, at the Austrian Court, the ex-Crown Princess had no place/rank of her own but only in connection with her in-laws. As the empress was rarely in Vienna, Stephanie simply found herself between all chairs (as we say in Germany) and that caused a problem for her.

Oh, I see. Poor woman, this Princess Stephanie was. She got some STD from her husband whilst they were still married etc, too, so I understand. Then, she did not get on with her own father in Belgium either etc.

In comparison, Augusta, the Dowager Princess of Wales, sounded to have had a better position that this Stephanie woman and she was treated as the first lady of the realm for there was no queen consort in England at that time etc. though the press & the general public were quite hostile to the Princess Dowager because of the rumour that she was having an affair with the Earl of Bute or whatever.

It was meant to be a "quick fix" answer to public sensitivities to the idea of Camilla taking Diana's place. They took care of the immediate issue by announcing she would not use her senior title as Princess of Wales, an inevitable concession given that Diana died with the style and was the mother of a future king.

But the issue of being known as Princess Consort was quickly challenged by Parliament, since it was not made clear that consent was required to waive her right to be Queen. After fumbling around, it was finally conceded by the Lord Chancellor that legislation would, in fact, be required for Camilla to use a lesser title.

The intention all along was to gloss it over and hope that The Queen would live long enough for people to get used to the idea of Camilla being Queen Consort. Whether this will happen or not remains to be seen.

I think your take on this is absolutely correct. I just wonder if 'they' (palace machine)thought that no one would pick up on the legislation change issue, in which case 'they' could act surprised when the time came and say oh well, she'll have to be Queen after all. Thinking by that time, the public will have warmed to Camilla.

I think your take on this is absolutely correct. I just wonder if 'they' (palace machine)thought that no one would pick up on the legislation change issue, in which case 'they' could act surprised when the time came and say oh well, she'll have to be Queen after all. Thinking by that time, the public will have warmed to Camilla.

People in general here feel that we just have to put up with all this but deep in somewhere not many people are feeling truly comfortable about what had happened.

Nobody really wants any harm done to Camilla but people in general just feel something is not quite right about their marriage.

I think your take on this is absolutely correct. I just wonder if 'they' (palace machine)thought that no one would pick up on the legislation change issue, in which case 'they' could act surprised when the time came and say oh well, she'll have to be Queen after all. Thinking by that time, the public will have warmed to Camilla.

I think that's exactly what they assumed would happen. Unfortunately, in a constitutional monarchy, these precedents must be considered by the will of the people as represented by Parliament, which is ultimately sovereign in the UK.

MP's weren't too happy to have the issue glossed over in a quick press release and started challenging the "intention" immediately. In the end, Clarence House conceded "legislation may be required to tidy-up the issue when the time comes", a very different stance than the initial one taken.

Personally, I do not believe Parliament will be willing to change the precedent and she will be Queen Camilla. But if the public opposition is clear, they will have no choice but to pass legislation.

Well there is another choice, even though many here would have me hung for mentioning it. Also, I firmly believe that this is part and parcel of the whole constitutional defender of the faith, remarriage issue. As far back as as the time of the separation from Diana, Charles consulted with Arnold, Lord Goodman, eminent lawyer and friend, who told him (according to published reports) that a divorce would not prevent Charles from becoming King, but a second marriage would. Charles replied that he did not intend to remarry. Charles also, in reply to QEII's letter, requesting they C+D proceed with the divorce, reiterated that he would not remarry. Interestingly, at the time leading up to Charles and Camilla's engagement announcement, BBC had a pole up (google C&C, engagement) which the overwhelming response was if they marry, he should renounce the throne. This combined with the Archbishop of Canterbury's decided unenthusiastic respose to the actual wedding of Charles to Camilla, leads me to wonder if the whole Princess Consort thing was premeditated to make the acceptance of Camilla more likely. Then after (hopefully) a long marriage, when QEII dies, people will be less hostile to Camilla. Just for the record, I am more interested in the historical/constitutional aspect of this than a mud fight about Camilla.

The issue at the time was whether the Church was prepared to accept a divorced Defender of the Faith. As the Church of England is without question a vessel of the Crown, it would be hard for the Archbishop of Canterbury not to accept a divorced monarch.

But the question of a remarriage was dicey since the previous wife was living and the proposed woman was a factor in the failure of the first marriage. Had Diana lived, I doubt Charles would have been able to marry Camilla with the consent of The Queen, but it's a question that can never be really answered.

The issue of Camilla's rank and title when he becomes King is clear constitutionally. She must be Queen, unless Parliament and the Crown Commonwealth are willing to accept a lesser title. If public pressure is strong enough, they will.

I think Charles and Camilla would have married sooner with Diana alive. She would have had several more high-profile relationships if not a second marriage, and the Diana circle types wouldn't be nearly as influential.

The issue of Camilla's rank and title when he becomes King is clear constitutionally. She must be Queen, unless Parliament and the Crown Commonwealth are willing to accept a lesser title. If public pressure is strong enough, they will.

We had that argument before but here it is again: what we are doing is coffeetable-talk at the moment. Of course we can discuss if the people are willing now to accept a Queen Camilla. But once the current queen is dead,t he whole climate in Britain will be affected. People will find that they love the new king as he is the symbol that their country is overcoming death. There's a deep aspect of eternity in human life involved in the idea of a hereditary monarchy (The queen is dead. Long live the king!). I have very serious doubts that the people of Britian who will feel an inner feeling of sadness and loss will do anything to hurt their new hope for eternity, their new king, by humiliating their new queen in public.

When Diana died, the people had no such new hope, they just looked for somebody to blame in order to cope with their loss. But when the queen dies, people will look up to Charles and his new office, finding consolation in him. And in the fact that he has a wife at his side who will be dignified in mourning and remind them all of the positive characteristics of their nation, for she will be a very British, very lady-like queen in mourning and she will show that she is willing to console the new king and with him the nation.

Of course I think some tabloids will immediately raise the question if Camilla should be queen - they are already prepared for it. But I doubt they will be heard by a mourning nation. I only hope the men in grey don't devise a wrong step by hte new king and his wife, for all could be lost then.

__________________'To dare is to lose one step for but a moment, not to dare is to lose oneself forever' - Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark in a letter to Miss Mary Donaldson as stated by them on their official engagement interview.

We had that argument before but here it is again: what we are doing is coffeetable-talk at the moment...

Well, I am not too sure re: what you think will happen in due course here in the United Kingdom. People in general have become more indifferent in the matters re: the royal family but are more annoyed by the facts such as how much they spent etc, and particularly, the Prince of Wales has not been so popular for such a long time, by the time the Demise of the Crown takes place, people may have become less favourable towards our royalty. In the end, our monarchy will be, more likely, reformed or transformed into a much simpler form so that none of this all costly affairs will be talked about again and again. Even the older generations are feeling so "let down" by them these days for they are more "celeb-like" than "royal" that people will just become more and more distant from that family.

When the housing price has gone down so badly but the mortgage rate has gone up so high and many middle-class people have had their precious homes repossessed by their mortgage lenders, many unskilled people are feeling as if they are overwhelmed by the recent mass migration from Poland and other Eastern European countries etc and the gun related crimes etc are in increase etc etc, all what people see in the household of the Prince of Wales and other roayl persons' matters are just so irelevant to them but only to annoy them. When a hard working family loses their precious home and cannot afford their annual holiday in Italy or Spain any longer, they hear Prince William used an army helicoptor (which is funded by the tax payers' money and our service men and women are facing such dangers in Afghanistan and Iraq etc because of the lack of equipments etc) to make his quick way to get to his weekend break etc, they only feel that they are ridiculed by them and question 'who do they think they are ?"

Even some people who have been invited to the royal functions no longer feel so grateful to the Prince of Wales (though they are invited to such functions) because he seems to be interested in sort of people who are "in" things than those are far too unknow.

Maybe because there is not much happening which feeds their positive feelings for the Royals. There's been no wedding for ages, there are no small kids whose pics can be enjoyed (Lady Louise is kept out of sight and her brother's christening was not even documented by a pic of the queen with him), Charles and Camilla are happily married but both are already quite old and people feel he is still waiting to start working in his "real" job. William and Harry, Beatrice and Eugenie only get negative media coverage... the list appears to be endless... So there really is no big event where people could start to feel for their RF again.

My hope is that William will not only start working as a Royal and bring a bit more "Royal glamour" to the stage, but that he will start his public duties with the announcement of his engagement and then after the wedding will go along into his public life with his wife at his side. Just like Alexandra and Mary renewed the interest in the Danish Royals. Or the wedding of Willem-Alexander with Maxima brought new charme to the Netherlands.

__________________'To dare is to lose one step for but a moment, not to dare is to lose oneself forever' - Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark in a letter to Miss Mary Donaldson as stated by them on their official engagement interview.

It seems as though Princess Marina remained a Princess of Greece and Denmark in her own right even after her marriage to the Duke of Kent. Following her elder son's wedding, she simply reverted to her own substantive princely title and her late husband's niece the Queen permitted her to be style as HRH Princess Marina the Duchess of Kent instead of HRH the Dowager Duchess of Kent.

Sorry somewhat late to this discussion but I'm not on this board everyday!

No Marina did not retain her title of Princess of Greece and Denmark in the UK after her marriage to The Duke of Kent. British citizens cannot hold foreign titles. Marina became a British citizen when she married, so if George did not have a dukedom, then she would have been Princess George. The two of them together would not have been Prince George and Princess Marina but Prince and Princess George. After her marriage Marina was always The Duchess of Kent, the Court Circular always had her as The Duchess of Kent during the 30s, 40s and 50s. In the UK she was not Princess Marina. When her son married, she didn't revert back to her substantive princely title, she was granted a courtesy title of Princess Marina by the queen. ( please don't quote wikipedia to me, it's wrong! Check with a royal historian who specialises in British titles) So it's then she became Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent and the Court Circular reflects this.

King George V changed the rules on foreign titles, overnight princes turned into marquis, lords, etc. Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Beatrice went from being Princess Henry of Battenberg to Princess Beatrice as she was the daughter of a queen. Princesses Victoria Helena and Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein to simply Princesses VH and ML.

So when Marina married into the British royal family, in the UK she was no longer Princess Marina until she was given a courtesy title in 1961. Outside the UK Marina could still remain Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark. In 1947 Princess Katherine of Greece married a British citizen, she also became a British citizen and lost her princess title ( and rank) in the UK. As she would attend royal events George VI gave her a courtesy title of the style and rank of a daughter of a British Earl. She became Lady Katherine, but outside the UK she was still Princess Katherine and this was reflected in the 2002 judgement for compensation against the Greek government that the Human Rights Court made, she was listed as Princess Katherine of Greece ( not Lady Katherine Branham) She died last year and was buried in Greece as Princess Katherine.
Earl Mountbatten's daughters Lady Patricia and Lady Pamela Mountbatten as late as the 1940's signed guest books in their relatives German castles as Princess Patrica of Battenberg and Princess Pamela of Battenberg.

Oh, I see. So, Princess Marina retained her Princess Marina outside here whilst she was married to her husband. Talking about this note, the Duke of Marlborough is supposed to hold a title of a prince by the Holy Roman Empire but I suppose he is not supposed to use it here but only in Germany ? Is that it ? Having said that, we call the Duke of Leinster, His Grace the Duke of Leinster but he is not a duke here in England but is the Viscount Leinster when he was sitting in the House of Lords. I suppose he prefered much grander style to his lesser style. Oh, in that case, will it be permisible for the Duke of Marlborough to call himself "prince" John or whatever instead of the Duke of Marlborough ? Even people like the Tolstoys still call themselves counts and countesses here.